[Report 1885] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.

  • Birmingham (England). Council.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1885] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/136 (page 17)
    To accurately obtain the distribution of the Deaths among Keiths ainon°^ the several Eegistration Sub-Districts of the Borough, it is Registration^ necessary to know the previous residences of those who die in the various Institutions, because without this knowledge not only is it impossible to allot to each district the Deaths that occur in the various Borough Institutions, but I am also unable to correct the total recorded Deaths in the Borough by deducting from them those in persons who have been inmates of our Hospitals, and have succumbed there, but who came from districts beyond the Borough. Without this desirable information I am forced, in order to fairly estimate the mortality of each Sub-District, to entirely disregard the Deaths in Institutions, and to calculate their respective Death-rates by the number of Deaths that have been recorded outside their walls. It thus happens that the Death-rate of the Eegistration Sub-District of Ladywood, which is made to appear by the inclusion of the mortality in the Children’s Hospital as being 17’7, actually stands, by the exclusion of the Deaths in that Institution, at 16*3. Similarly, the Death-rates of the Sub- Districts of Saint George and Saint Thomas are, by the elimination of the Deaths in the General and Queen’s Hospitals, reduced from 22’6 to 18-2 and from 20*2 to 15'5, respectively. The most striking fall in the Death-rate, however, by this method of treatment invariably occurs in the Sub-District of All Saints, which contains the Small-pox and Scarlet Fever Wards of the Borough Hospital, the Gaol—in which, however, few Deaths take place, only three being registered in the twelve months under review—the Lunatic Asylum, and the Workhouse. In both of the two Institutions last mentioned, more especially in the Workhouse, there is always unfortu- nately a large number of people, among whom the mortality is decidedly high. The subtraction of the Deaths in the Institutions situated in this Sub-District from its total mortality brings down its Death-rate to one-half of that which it would otherwise appear to be, viz., from 27*4 to 13’6. This mode of procedure does not produce, however, alto- gether satisfactory results, apart from the fact that the inmates of these Institutions, particularly of the Workhouse, are necessarily drawn unequally from the various portions of the Borough, because at the time the last Census was taken a certain number of persons occupied these Institutions, and formed a part of the enumerated population of the respective Sub-Districts in which these happened to be located. In all fairness, therefore, if we subtract the Deaths in these Institutions from the total mortality of the respective Eegistration Sub-Districts in which they are situated, we ought also to make allowance for the mean number of inmates during